SPECIAL INTERESTS RAISE SPECIAL CONCERNS FOR ALL MISSOURIANS

To the average citizen whose only wish is to survive an administration or a legislative session without seeing his bank account depleted, it must seem that special interests completely dominate today's political climate. Call it public paranoia or simply concern over one's own well-being, this sense of being outnumbered by hundreds of special interests has become a very real part of life in the 1990s. In fact, this sense of unease by the public in general has played a far more significant role in determining recent elections than many observers have been willing to admit.

As for the public's perception that it is becoming a patsy for special interests, those who advocate special dispensations for special constituents cavalierly dismiss our concerns with the retort by saying, "Everyone belongs to some special interest group." In a sense this is true, but those who defend the practice of taking from the many to dispense to the few forget that there are different kinds of special interests, and they can roughly be divided between those that seek redress for the common good and those that seek special advantages for the special few.

The public seldom if ever expresses alarm over the former, since we are a state and nation committed to the advancement of society as a whole, while no paragraph in our Constitution promises particular dispensations for the few. E pluribus unum was the operative phrase of the Founding Fathers, not Avaritia bona est, which translates "Greed is good."

At the risk of offending friends, associates and even firms supplying essential services, let's recognize only a few of the special interest issues that are now being pursued in this legislative session in Jefferson City. A pure classic is an attempt to exempt an out-of-state high roller named Connelly from the restrictions already approved on others seeking to operate riverboat casinos in Missouri. Crapshoot Connelly is the owner of the S.S. Admiral, a white elephant now moored in St. Louis because it has no engines. Connelly and his special interest lackies want to exempt him from the requirement that riverboat casinos actually are river boats by being able to put up and down either the Mississippi or Missouri rivers.

Voters didn't approve dockside gambling; they approved riverboat gambling, a big difference to those who would like to get the crapshooters out of town if only for a few hours. Connelly, a bigtime contributor to most of the state's politicians, wants just this teeny little favor from the General Assembly to avoid having to pay millions to make the Admiral seaworthy. Connelly counts as a greedy special interest whose wishes should be ignored, rather than a special interest for the commonwealth.

Let's take the infamous "Yellow Pages" gambit now being pursued by the state's largest utility, Southwestern Bell, which wants the General Assembly to forget its mountainous profits from advertising in computing the rates it charges Widow Brown and the Home For Little Helpless Orphans. The company, and its well-heeled lobbyists in Jefferson City, argue that its profitable "Yellow Pages" division isn't really a part of supplying services to millions of Missouri homes and businesses. What is omitted is that this service is an adjunct of the company's operations and wouldn't be profitable if it did not also provide telecommunication services. You can bet that if "Yellow Pages" was losing money, Bell would insist that it be counted as a part of its operations for rate-making purposes.

Despite the fact every member of the state's Public Service Commission - composed of several world-class apologists for corporate greed - opposes eliminating "Yellow Pages" from the rate-setting formula, Bell has been able to pursue its cause in the General Assembly with great success and the issue remains still in doubt. Incidentally, this is a company that is now in the process of moving its headquarters from Missouri to Texas but is now asking our state to enact a unique fiscal dispensation. No one ever said special interests were logical.

Although in this instance it didn't have to threaten to close a brewery, lobbyists for Anheuser-Busch got a proposed levy on beer removed from a badly needed health care bill sponsored by House Speaker Bob Griffin, throwing the bulk of financing onto the tobacco companies. We hold no brief for cigarette smokers, but why ask them to foot the entire cost of a measure deemed essential to the health of 600,000 Missourians? Alcoholism and its destructive effects exact a far higher price from society than tobacco, but then Philip Morris doesn't have free baseball tickets to hand out.

Let's change our state motto to Potus Populi Cerevesiarum Rex Est. "The beverage of the people is Bud."